The bad news is that the horse boarding in the town we want to move to is not going to work out. The property which seemed so nice does not have running water, only a creek. That could be a real nightmare, hauling water every day.

Just a thought: When we started at our place nearly 10 years ago, all we had is a cow paddock with 4ha internally fenced off, and a farm dam in the 8ha of unfenced pasture 200m away from our watering point in the fenced horse paddocks. And we had basically no money to spare, even for a small $450 fire pump. What we did is buy an inexpensive $40 12V caravan pump at a caravan store, hook it to a car battery which was hooked to a small solar panel, and use that to pump water through a standard black polypipe into the old cast-iron bathtubs we were (and still are) using as horse troughs. It took a while, but it worked, and got us started. A year later we had a water tank and a shed roof to collect from, and ran that water by gravity down to the horse troughs. Sometimes these things aren't the problems you might think they are. And good luck with finding a good boarding spot!

I’m sorry about the boarding situation. This must be getting frustrating.

I really liked your post. My county still has zero cases. Here’s the thing though. In basketball season a terrible bug wiped out the town. It was very very bad. There were even warnings out to not come to my town. It was when little girl got so sick that she threw up a lot of blood, and four other people did the same. Some called it the flu, and one of the kids who went somewhere different for diagnosis I heard was diagnosed with tb.

I got it after little girl did. She was sick 22 days and I was sick 16 I think. It was awful and we both ended up taking antibiotics. A lot of people though that maybe that was what originally happened here. I doubted it, but now I do wonder. (You can imagine, we were so sick that one day there were only 38 kids left in the school.)

But I do think some of the stuff people are being asked to do in some countries is a bit extreme, like not being allowed out to exercise, and parks and beaches getting closed.

If everyone stuck to the commonsense guidelines, transmission risks outdoors would be low

The problem is, at least around here, the latter statement is apparently not possible.. so things are closed to save the idiots from themselves.

The mayor of the large town near us had to mandate a curfew and threaten to activate the national guard to get groups of people to stop loitering on street corners and at local parks. The handful of local parks looked like outdoor concerts, with people side by side on benches, bashing into each other on basketball courts, and letting all the children play together. The infection rate was much higher here than it should have been statistically and I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if it hadn't been so rainy!

I went to the grocery store last week for the first time since all this started. This state has a mandate that all people in public must wear masks (this has been in effect for a couple weeks now, so is not new). I get to the store and am not surprised to see someone at the entrance to the store who is not only disinfecting the carts between people, but also acting as a bouncer of sorts. A lady without a mask tried to enter as I was about halfway across the parking lot and when the guy at the door wouldn't let her in, she got loud. She was yelling about how he wasn't the boss of her and how she had a constitutional right to go where she wanted without any [email protected] mask. I give the employee many kudos for remaining calm and his only comment was she was not allowed in without a mask. The employee was a large man who easily blocked the door - I doubt that was by accident. After another moment of yelling and gesturing, the lady stormed off.

I went in (mask on) and had no issue following the one-way flow down each aisle (new since the pandemic) and also had no issue standing on the 6 feet apart marks on the floor while waiting to check out. I don't understand why simple things are such issues for people.. but somehow they are. Does it really ruin your day to wear a mask for 30 minutes while shopping or go down this aisle east to west vs west to east??

If this pandemic taught people how to wash their hands and an awareness of staying away from those coughing and sneezing around them, it could potentially decrease the spread of all infectious disease in the future.

I think people should wear masks if they are sick, otherwise if you are keeping a distance from others there is no reason to.

The explanation for everyone wearing masks was partly to do with asymptomatic carriers but mostly to do with non-compliant idiots. Knowing how many people leave a bathroom without washing their hands, I don't hold much hope for this having made an impression either.

I find the results of your work's antibody testing to be fascinating and it gives me some hope that many have already been exposed and recovered long before we knew covid19 existed. I would love to be titered at some point, as I got very sick after returning from vacation in early february and all the symptoms match.

Everyone where I live has hauled water except for a couple hundred in the town proper. Postmaster says there are 1,200 PO Boxes with multiple people living at many. (it's not williams but nearby).

I have a 300 gallon water trailer and a 2500 gallon buried tank. Most have the same size but above ground. Most have larger water trailer but it's just me and it's only 7 miles plus I go in to check the mail etc so no extra trip.

Many use a delivery service which requires a minimum of 2,000 gallons delivery. If less, same price.

It's all city water and it's very good water. I pay $0.0125 per gallon. About triple that for delivery.

The water here is very very deep which makes it uneconomical to drill unless several people are using it.

Your area does not likely have a water problem, but there is often water haul trucks available for construction water. Would not be potable but it'd be plenty ok for horses.

A 2500 gallon tank would run between $1500.00 and $2,000.00. Around here at least.

So if you really like the area and the board otherwise, setting a tank and having water hauled might be a solution. If you eventually moved, the tank could either be relocated or sold.

If there is electricity you might want to spend $150 or so on an inexpensive pump and pressure tank. That is actually what I'm using. From Harbor Freight no less.

Or you could just set a water trough adjacent to the tank and get a float setup and there you go. Done.

In Arizona, I see few masks although some stores are starting to require it. Most folks have been sensible, at least out where I live. However...I'd bet the parks in Tucson would see a lot of folks ignoring everything. Like when you see stories of folks crowding a hundred people into their home for a party. Really?

It makes it difficult to have sensible rules. I'm in Texas tonight. The WalMart here required everyone to use a cart (to create 6' maybe?) and had an armed policeman at the entrance. But the carts were not being wiped down and they had run out of wipes, so...really? Require everyone to push a cart that had just been pushed by someone else without sanitizing? On the road it can be awkward finding places to use a restroom and I'm already tired of eating drive-thru garbage food! And I even LIKE McDonalds! I'm looking forward to getting back to Arizona later this week.

I really appreciate the different perspectives and opinions everyone presents.

About the water, it is interesting to hear from those of you in drier places. It is something for me to consider, if maybe there is more potential for the boarding place than I realize. Probably those who live in dry areas would have a serious dichotomy if they saw how those of us living in rain forests behave with water. It is the practice of many horse people to hose down their horses completely after a ride where they get sweaty, and barns I've been at will dump out every water bucket daily, scrub it and then refill it. We often leave water running when we go to get things, like if I was going to rinse a saddle pad and forgot it in the barn, I might walk back there and leave the water going, thinking it is more trouble to turn the faucet off. Water here is cheap, and plentiful. So I am guessing the creek I am thinking might not suffice for water on the horse property I am looking at might seem like a river to some of you, and a great source of water.

People can be supportive of masking, and other measures, and I think it's true that these things are about those who behave irresponsibly. But I also balance that with the current idea of what is "irresponsible," which covers many things that are only opinions, even if they are widely held ones.
I saw a cartoon that said why people need to mask is like someone near you is going to pee himself. If neither of you are wearing pants, you will get wet. If you wear pants, you will only get a little damp. If you both wear pants, only he will get wet. This is amusing, but sidesteps the issue that only the person wetting himself needs to be wearing the pants. And if you never get close enough to get peed on, you're perfectly safe. In other words, if a person is not wearing a mask, in order to stay safe all you need to do is avoid getting coughed or sneezed on. If you don't allow others to get close to you, there are no worries. Avoid blind corners. Even asymptomatic carriers must somehow dispense the virus out of their body. The masks are only for holding their snot flow in and such, and so you yourself can always stay safe with distance and hand washing. Spread from simple talking would require that you were very, very close to a person. Basically, governments are worried about the one irresponsible person who will spew germs everywhere, and they don't trust you to keep yourself safe. That is fine, but not required to be a responsible person.

Yes, many who are not wearing masks are irresponsible. You can judge a person for not wearing a mask, but that is essentially a form of bigotry since you don't actually know if they are a responsible person or not. I understand people want everyone to wear masks, because they feel like it will help the pandemic spread less. It will only do so in areas where people are forced to be close to irresponsible people. Such as on a tightly packed subway. In other areas, the masks do nothing except create a feeling of safety. I have heard things like what kind of a selfish person won't wear a mask in a pandemic? And I think that is the sort of shaming a parent will do to try to get their kid to eat their peas. Poor kids starving in another country will not be helped by my eating peas, even if it makes my mom feel better. My wearing a mask will not help anyone avoid infection, even if it makes someone else feel better.

I was making up a little sci-fi story about Coronavirus to entertain myself.

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Viruses need hosts. A host is like a planet, or maybe a giant space station. When viruses leave the host, they're like space men going out in suits or tiny space ships. They only have so much time before they will run out of resources they need and die (technically viruses don't die because they are not alive, but they degrade and become non-viable - so for our purposes, "die.").

Two planets or space stations come close to each other. One that is infected opens its doors and the little space men come swarming out to attack the other planet. If the planets stay in close proximity, more little space men can cross over. Once they invade and get inside, they try to take over the host. This is done by creating replicants. The replicants use the host planet as a base to make many more copies of themselves. When there are enough of them, they can send replicants out to invade another planet, spreading across the universe.

If the replicants are too aggressive, and use up all of the resources, the planet will die. Sometimes the planet attacks the invaders too hard, using up all its own resources and ends up causing its own death. Ideally, the replicants sneak in without too much notice and take over, the troops sending off new replicants to take over other planets, with some being left behind to be subdued and imprisoned. Then the planet will return to normal.

When the replicants leave a planet, if there is no other planet nearby to invade, they head off in their tiny spaceships or survival suits. This is very risky. Sometimes they land on uninhabited territory, taking the chance that a planet may come close enough for them to latch on and enter it. It must be done before they run out of resources in the spaceship and find themselves exposed to the deadly environment. This is the most difficult way to take over a planet, with only a few spacemen available to enter the hostile territory and try to make replicants. Sometimes they can float in their survival suits for a time, but quickly grow weaker as they run out of supplies and begin to degrade. If they happen to get sucked into the atmosphere of a new planet, they may try to make replicants, but usually they are too weak to continue.

That's my little sci-fi picture of how I envision Covid spreads and works.

My understanding is that the highest risk is through droplet infection, followed by a much, much lower incidence of touching your mucous membranes with contaminated hands, and a very rare circumstance (potential, not known) of aerosolized transmission. Apparently, it is possible for a person to produce particles tiny enough to be suspended in the air, but there is no evidence yet showing that the amount of those suspended particles produced by one person contains enough virus that another person could be infected. Virus particles from air samples so far have not been able to produce disease in the lab. Going with epidemiological evidence so far, it sounds like the virus is very fragile and easy to kill, and most cases are from people in prolonged contact with those who are infected. Close distance over a prolonged period of time.

Thank you for the clarification! And all the other detailed information in your post.

I have no idea who produced this poster. The reason it made me mad is because of the misconceptions it creates about the spread of COVID-19. It doesn't just sit in the air as depicted; it needs human hosts to transfer (although there's a few questions at the moment as to which animals could also spread it, since some cats have tested positive). Human hosts can throw out a cloud of virus, fine - but only in their immediate vicinity, and soon it will disperse enough for the air in that space not to be infectious anymore - and obviously, the droplets with virus can land on stuff, and cause infections by transfer to mucous membranes, with unwashed hands etc.

Sometimes I think that's what a few of the officials believed about the virus when they were, for example, limiting even the amount of time people could spend in their own gardens in some areas - like 1 hour in Scotland at some point - that just didn't make any sense at all.

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To me when it is highlighted that health care workers have the virus in large numbers, it is important to consider if those are in areas where everyone has the virus in large numbers, and the health care workers are part of the general community. I think everyone assumes the workers are contracting the virus at work, but in most places health care workers are far less likely to catch disease at work where they are following infection control procedures, and much more likely to catch diseases in the community and from family. Especially we see this in many diseases with people who have school-age children, and get exposed to all kinds of things. Usually where I work we have seen this route to infection: children bring something to their parents, who bring it to work, who give it to other coworkers. It is extremely rare to see a patient bring a disease which is spread among workers. You're less likely to catch a disease from someone when you are thinking "they are contaminated" versus when you are talking comfortably to a friend, who happens to have the disease that is going around.

I thought that was a really interesting point that I've actually not seen in any discussions I've read in the media about it so far.

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My work is doing antibody screening, to see which health care workers have been exposed. This will be followed up by a series of tests, to see how many will get exposed over time. I confess this is too much work for me, so I did not sign up. So far we have one person with antibodies whose entire family was sick with something that lasted a couple of weeks in January. That was well before the cases showed up in the nursing home in WA in late February. My suspicion is that since we've had so few cases in Oregon, 2,500 out of 4 million people, more than likely we already have some immunity due to undiagnosed cases from before the outbreak began. After all, many people die of respiratory illnesses that are not pinned to a specific organism. Older people dying with comorbidities...that could have been happening since the earliest cases in China (since we have so much worldwide travel) and it would not have caused any alarm. It's not like that is anything unusual. If the amount of deaths were similar to what we've had so far in Oregon, I suspect we would not have noticed. Until there were actual outbreaks such as the one in Washington, and the later spread to the big cities, it could have passed around much of the less populated areas of the country.

The only thing I want to query here is, do you think that such a significant level of herd immunity could have developed in Oregon in such a short time? They tell us here that you need around 60% of the population to have had it, or be immunised, for effective herd immunity.

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People seem to be returning to normal where I live. Meaning they are driving around, going to the stores that are open, and generally not behaving fearfully or looking all jumpy like there are crocodiles in the bushes like they were a couple weeks ago. This is good, in my opinion. Fear in itself is unhealthy. Our governor says we will begin opening businesses in two weeks. Since people are not getting infected at high rates here, I think it is a good decision. Otherwise, keep everything closed until there is a vaccine?

We are pretty much at that point here too in Western Australia, but are expecting a second wave of outbreak once we loosen restrictions. As long as the hospitals don't get overstretched by it, we won't have to return to lockdown, but that is a possibility were the virus to start spreading alarmingly here again. Still, there's lots of testing and contact tracing going on here, at very effective levels at present. Social distancing is predicted to be with us at the current level for a long time - no more than 10 people meeting up, and 1.5m between anyone not in the same household. Wash your hands, etc. Sick people should stay home; wear masks if absolutely needing to come out (to seek medical attention etc).

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Originally Posted by SueCView PostBut I do think some of the stuff people are being asked to do in some countries is a bit extreme, like not being allowed out to exercise, and parks and beaches getting closed.

If everyone stuck to the commonsense guidelines, transmission risks outdoors would be low

The problem is, at least around here, the latter statement is apparently not possible.. so things are closed to save the idiots from themselves.

The mayor of the large town near us had to mandate a curfew and threaten to activate the national guard to get groups of people to stop loitering on street corners and at local parks. The handful of local parks looked like outdoor concerts, with people side by side on benches, bashing into each other on basketball courts, and letting all the children play together. The infection rate was much higher here than it should have been statistically and I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if it hadn't been so rainy!

I went to the grocery store last week for the first time since all this started. This state has a mandate that all people in public must wear masks (this has been in effect for a couple weeks now, so is not new). I get to the store and am not surprised to see someone at the entrance to the store who is not only disinfecting the carts between people, but also acting as a bouncer of sorts. A lady without a mask tried to enter as I was about halfway across the parking lot and when the guy at the door wouldn't let her in, she got loud. She was yelling about how he wasn't the boss of her and how she had a constitutional right to go where she wanted without any [email protected] mask. I give the employee many kudos for remaining calm and his only comment was she was not allowed in without a mask. The employee was a large man who easily blocked the door - I doubt that was by accident. After another moment of yelling and gesturing, the lady stormed off.

That's so shocking! I've seen stuff like that from the US on TV here, the way people are behaving often en masse, and wonder why it is that some people think freedom is the freedom to be selfish and not care about other people. There was even a woman with the placard, "Where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty" in a street march (with everyone crammed together...)... but that's so twisted, and what about Love thy neighbour?

I live on a farm and don't generally go to town more than once a week. When the pandemic broke out, I didn't need to go to town another three weeks, but when I did, I was pleasantly surprised by how polite and cooperative the vast majority of the public were with the new restrictions in place, and with this atmosphere of people looking after each other. People were actually friendlier than usual and going out of their way to acknowledge other people, smile etc - while keeping the prescribed distance.

It surprised me because we have a fair few yobbos in our population as well - and yet I've not personally seen any untoward behaviour (other than the evidence of panic buying) in my limited outings during this pandemic - not on the street, not in the supermarket, not on a walking trail. I'm sure things like that have happened in Australia as well, but interestingly, not at a very high rate from what I've seen in person and on the news (I'm actually currently watching our ABC news and discussion programmes, because of the pandemic).

I hope we stay like this...

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I went in (mask on) and had no issue following the one-way flow down each aisle (new since the pandemic) and also had no issue standing on the 6 feet apart marks on the floor while waiting to check out. I don't understand why simple things are such issues for people.. but somehow they are. Does it really ruin your day to wear a mask for 30 minutes while shopping or go down this aisle east to west vs west to east??

Yeah, I don't get it either...

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The explanation for everyone wearing masks was partly to do with asymptomatic carriers but mostly to do with non-compliant idiots. Knowing how many people leave a bathroom without washing their hands, I don't hold much hope for this having made an impression either.

I guess it is easier to see who's not complying when you're making it compulsory for everyone, than when you're saying, "Wear this when you're ill!" - you can't necessarily spot the ill person not complying, and maybe asymptomatic people should wear masks too (but they don't know they have it).

But you know one other thing that occurred to me? If you only compel sick people to wear masks, then some idiots out there in the community (the same type as attack nurses in uniform etc) are going to start attacking people who wear masks. If everyone wears them, then the chances of that are much lower.

(And yes, it is a shame that we have to cater for idiots so much...)

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Originally Posted by gottatrotView PostIf this pandemic taught people how to wash their hands and an awareness of staying away from those coughing and sneezing around them, it could potentially decrease the spread of all infectious disease in the future.

I think people should wear masks if they are sick, otherwise if you are keeping a distance from others there is no reason to.

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I find the results of your work's antibody testing to be fascinating and it gives me some hope that many have already been exposed and recovered long before we knew covid19 existed. I would love to be titered at some point, as I got very sick after returning from vacation in early february and all the symptoms match.

Wow, if you manage to get a test for that, please let us know! Quite a few people in your situation have been wondering - you know, "I had something like that a while back, was it COVID-19?"

In the Philippines, the standard joke about jeepnies (the standard public transportation) was, "How many passengers does a jeepney hold? Answer: One More!" You would squeeze in as many passengers as the jeepney driver could make a profit by carrying, so everyone was a fraction of an inch from the next person. Or practically sitting on their lap, or crushed next to the person.

For THAT culture, masks make sense. Subways in NYC? Makes sense - although SANITIZING the subways may make more! But mandatory masks in a WalMart aren't doing measurable good, other than allowing people to cling to their fear. I do not feel responsible for supporting someone else's irrational (not based in evidence) fear.

It might be more helpful to teach people to respond to a sneeze near you the way I do now: By leaping like a wildebeest avoiding a lion!

Great post,
@SueC . And I should add what I said about there being "no reason" to wear a mask, I should clarify I am talking about small town Oregon where there are no requirements for wearing masks, and in a county with 40,000 people and 8 Covid cases (with a lot of testing being done). In
@PhantomHorse 's example, there was a requirement to wear masks, and some idiot being ridiculous about it.

To answer your question about herd immunity, perhaps there have not been enough cases for it in Oregon, but I wonder if there is another explanation for why we have been light while CA and WA have been hit heavy. There were lots of children with severe illness in the schools earlier in the year. Perhaps they somehow provided a vector that changed the virus here. Or maybe our weather is having some strange effect. Whatever the case, if people are not infected, then there can be no herd immunity anyway.

What I am against is illogical, fear based measures, doing things that are extreme to make people feel better that are not based on science (such as hosing down beach sand), and not considering the bigger picture of everything that is being affected in the name of disease control.

It might seem like I am agreeing with some politics, but what I believe is that there is no utopia of belief where a "side" is right. Rather, I believe every individual topic should be weighed and decided on. And within a topic, there are multiple things I might agree or disagree with. This seems to be unpopular, since if I agree with one thing, some will think I am affiliated with certain political beliefs, but if I agree with another thing, some will think the opposite. Why can't we make individual decisions about everything, without having to feel that beliefs are grouped together in enormous clumps and that people are defined by those clumps of beliefs?
I can read an article from an "evil" source, and sift through what I believe may be factual or just opinion. Then I can read an opposite perspective and see which makes the most sense to me. Many people I meet would like to have everything pre-sorted by a safe source, almost as if they are afraid if they think for themselves they might get off track. These are people from all political persuasions.

Two good riding friends used to go out with me and discuss politics (they enjoyed the topic, I did not). They were on extreme opposite ends of the spectrum. I found that I agreed with many ideas of both of them. They actually got along quite well, in part because each had some views that were not at all in line with the politics they aligned with. They helped me learn that you can never put people into a box, or think you understand how they might think about one topic based on what they think about another topic. I've seen this with co-workers as well, and I think Oregon is a kind of interesting state because it has extremes of political beliefs within the state that mix together. This means that people become a sort of mix of beliefs, and you might find right-wing types that are extremely into environmentalism, and left-wing types who are very into gun rights. I like debates because I consider that I might change my mind. Often I do. This is something I believe is healthy, a willingness to change your mind when better information comes to your attention.

My job in health care is not political. Diseases and human bodies behave the way they do without any affiliation. When my patients come in, they often want to tell me about their beliefs. They'll say, "I hate the president, he's ruining everything." I'll say, "Yes, it's terrible." The next patient will come in and say, "Finally our country has good leadership. I feel good about it." I'll say, "Isn't it wonderful?" Because it's not important if I believe the way they do. What is important is that they feel supported, because most people do not trust those who disagree with them, and have a strong bias that those who believe other than they do may not be good people. Stress is an enemy of healing. By agreeing with patients, I have found the barriers go down that might prevent them from listening to and cooperating with important and completely non-political issues such as blood glucose control, antibiotic resistance, side effects of medications, and risks vs benefits of being on blood thinners.

I've heard that if you are not completely for every Covid measure, or if you think businesses could open in some areas, you must have certain persuasions. But I think some of us are not extreme and want to merely find a place where we can balance the bad effects from a deadly virus with the bad effects from the responses trying to prevent the spread of disease. I'm not sure why it needs to be all or nothing, and although I don't see why many business should not open again, it's not because I think everyone should rush out to big concerts again. Or that we should paint flags on our bodies and scream about freedom. It's because most of our small businesses here only ever have one or two people in them at a time, and so with safety measures in place there's really no reason why they can't open. If our big grocery stores are "safe" with a hundred people milling around inside, then the fabric store and mattress store, the bakery and all the other stores also should be able to open with that same measure of safety.

So hopefully none of you will think this post is talking about politics, rather I am trying to discuss why I think having a discussion about Covid can bring up many topics without taking a side on politics and becoming offensive, heated or impolite.

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